Xfinity customers will have to pay to stream Peacock soon
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Comcast wants Xfinity subscribers to pay up for Peacock. In a post on Twitter, the Comcast-owned NBCUniversal confirmed plans to stop offering free access to Peacock Premium to Xfinity subscribers on June 26th, 2023 (via Variety).
Peacock Premium, which normally costs $4.99 per month, is an ad-supported plan that has been available to Xfinity customers at no extra cost since the service first launched in 2020. Details about the change first emerged in a post on Reddit, which an NBCUniversal representative later confirmed to Variety and The Streamable.
Hello Bob! Thank you for contacting Peacock, we're happy to help. We can confirm that complimentary Peacock Premium access will be ending on June 26, 2023, and we have no additional information at this time.
For any additional assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out!
As part of the change, Xfinity will start offering a discounted version of Peacock to Xfinity subscribers in place of the free subscription. It’s still unclear how much this add-on will cost, however, and the company didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment. The company will also stop offering free Peacock Premium to new Xfinity customers starting on April 3rd, and will only provide free, six-month trials going forward.
While NBCUniversal initially marketed Peacock as a “free as a bird” service, the company’s decision to cut off Xfinity customers doesn’t come as much of a shock. Last June, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell hinted that the company will make Xfinity customers pay for Peacock “at some point.”
But with the streaming service’s slow growth and $3 billion in expected losses, NBCUniversal’s likely looking for ways to squeeze existing subscribers, while forcing freeloaders to pay up. The company's already making moves to improve the content it has on offer, with the release of the breakout hit Poker Face and the addition of local NBC stations for Premium Plus subscribers. Peacock reported having a total of 20 million paid subscribers last quarter.
It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to hang on to all the viewers who tuned into Peacock with their Xfinity subscriptions, though. As an Xfinity customer who’s been getting Peacock for free for over a year now, I’m certainly not looking forward to shelling out extra cash on top of all the other streamer services I’m already subscribed to, even if it is at a discount.
Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.
Just nine out of 116 AI professionals in films are women, study finds
Report says pattern seen in films such as Ex Machina risks contributing to lack of women in tech
A relentless stream of movies, from Iron Man to Ex Machina, has helped entrench systemic gender inequality in the artificial intelligence industry by portraying AI researchers almost exclusively as men, a study has found.
The overwhelming predominance of men as leading AI researchers in movies has shaped public perceptions of the industry, the authors say, and risks contributing to a dramatic lack of women in the tech workforce.
Don’t attempt this RGB Steam Deck mod just yet
The RGBDeck mod just isn’t ready yet. | Image: Adam Honse / Reddit
As cool as the Steam Deck looks with RGB lighting, you might not want to attempt to mod your device just yet. One Reddit user who tried the mod found that while adding the RGB LEDs doesn’t draw a significant amount of power from the battery, it can cause pretty big issues with the Steam Deck’s motherboard.
The “RGBDeck” mod started making the rounds on Reddit earlier this month, with u/WUBBSY documenting the process of affixing a small microcontroller and LED strips to the device. They topped it off with a transparent backing from JSAUX, allowing the lights to shine through the case while the Steam Deck’s switched on. The end result gives the Steam Deck a nice pop of color (in a very gamer PC kind of way).
— Adam (@CalcProgrammer1@mastodon.social) (@CalcProgrammer1) February 6, 2023
Adam Honse (u/CalcProgrammer1), the developer behind the open-source lighting platform OpenRGB, also attempted the mod and even came up with an integration that lets users adjust the Steam Deck’s lighting through the app. However, Honse has since posted an update on Saturday night that advises against trying it, noting that it “seems to be a significant hurt on the motherboard.”
According to Honse, the source of the issue is a tiny component “that did not like the added power draw on the internal USB connection between the motherboard and controller PCB,” where he sourced the 5V needed to power the RGB lights. That piece ended up failing after a few days, causing the lights and controller to exhibit some funky behavior before they stopped working altogether.
It also did some damage to a component on the Steam Deck’s motherboard, which is supposed to cut off the 5V of power to the controller board when the device is in sleep mode. As explained by Honse, that piece no longer switches the power off to the controller when the Steam Deck’s on standby, causing the device to lose power. “We’ll need to find a new source of 5V power that can handle higher current,” Honse explains.
In other words, the mod just isn’t there yet, and that’s okay; I’m just glad Honse came forward before other modders go breaking their Steam Decks. Hopefully, it won’t be too long until we see a possible solution (at least until Valve decides to incorporate RGB into the Steam Deck by default).
Ford’s reportedly working on a $3.5 billion battery plant in Michigan
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Ford’s gearing up to announce a $3.5 billion battery plant in Marshall, Michigan, according to a report from Automotive News. In an advisory obtained by the outlet, the automaker says it will reveal the news of the factory on Monday in partnership with China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), a company that creates lithium iron phosphate batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), including the Mustang Mach-E.
While Ford still hasn’t confirmed these plans, Michigan reportedly offered $1 billion in incentives to attract the automaker. The factory’s expected to bring 2,500 jobs to the area.
Even still, Ford’s reportedly pushing ahead with the project. It could implement a “novel ownership structure” that would allow the automaker to work with the Chinese company and still qualify for the federal tax credit, according to a report from Bloomberg. This could involve Ford taking 100 percent ownership of the plant itself, while CATL controls operations at the facility and keeps the technology it uses to build the batteries.
Rumors about the new facility have been swirling for months, with a report from The Detroit News indicating that Ford initially wanted to bring the battery factory to Virginia. However, Governor Glenn Youngkin rejected its construction in the state over its ties to China, with his spokesperson noting at the time that it “would serve as a front for the Chinese Communist party, which could compromise our economic security and Virginians’ personal privacy.”
Ford later set its sights on Michigan, which recently began advertising a 1,900 “megasite” in the southwest portion of the state. If the rumors are true, the Michigan-based $3.5 plant would add to the $11.4 billion investment Ford made in partnership with South Korea’s SK Innovation to bring battery and EV factories in Tennessee and Kentucky. It could also help the company get closer to its goal of building over 2 million EVs per year by late 2026.
Opera’s building ChatGPT into its sidebar
Opera’s new tool summarizes webpages, and it apparently works on Verge articles! | Image: Opera
Opera’s adding a ChatGPT-powered tool to its sidebar that generates brief summaries of webpages and articles. The feature, called “shorten,” is part of the company’s broader plans to integrate AI tools into its browser, similar to what Microsoft’s doing with Edge.
As shown in a demo included in Opera’s blog post, you can activate the feature by selecting the “shorten” button to the right of the address bar. From there, a sidebar with ChatGPT will pop out from the left, which will then generate a neat, bulleted summary of the article or webpage you’re looking at.
Opera’s announcement comes just days after Microsoft revealed the AI-powered Bing and Edge. While the company’s search engine will offer access to an AI chatbot that provides annotated answers to queries, Edge will come with an AI “copilot” that can similarly summarize webpages or articles, as well as generate text for social media posts and more. Google also showed off its AI search bot Bard earlier this week, although it’s not available for users to demo just yet.
“We are excited to see the rapid roll-out of developer programs for solutions such as Google Bard, for example, and are starting to build and roll out new experiences in web browsing that not very long ago seemed impossible to achieve,” Per Wetterdal, Opera’s head of strategic partnerships and AI ecosystem says in a statement.
The “shorten” feature isn’t available to everyone just yet, though. Jan Standel, the vice president of marketing and communications at Opera, tells The Verge that it’s going to “launch in browsers very soon.” Opera’s also working on other AI-powered features that “augment” the browsing experience and plans on adding “popular AI-generated content services to the sidebar,” although it’s not yet clear what this could entail.
Some Googlers reportedly aren’t happy about Bard’s ‘rushed’ announcement
Illustration: The Verge
Googlers are talking all about the company’s announcement of its ChatGPT rival, Bard — and many aren’t happy with how things went. According to a report from CNBC, Google employees are calling the launch of the AI chatbot “rushed” and “botched” in posts across the company’s internal message boards, with many targeting CEO Sundar Pichai.
“Dear Sundar, the Bard launch and the layoffs were rushed, botched, and myopic,” one user wrote a heavily upvoted post seen by CNBC, which refers to last month's job cuts that eliminated 12,000 workers. Other Googlers reportedly posted memes comparing the past year at Google to a dumpster fire, while another employee said “pushing Bard to market in a panic validated the market’s fear about us.” Google’s stock took a pretty big blow after news about Bard’s error started going around, losing nearly $100 billion of its market value in just one day.
Google’s ChatGPT competitor won’t see wider availability for weeks, but with Microsoft planning to upend web search with a bot that can provide annotated answers to various types of queries, it’s no wonder that Google — which is arguably the king of search — decided to show off Bard now, even if it was a tad earlier than expected.
It’s the ultimate big-screen gaming experience for the ultimate price.
Razer has made big laptops in the past — but they apparently weren’t big enough. The Razer Blade 18 is the biggest-screened Razer Blade ever released, and it’s hard to overstate how immersive that 18-inch, QHD, 16:10, 240Hz display is. That massive 2560 x 1600 screen is the primary draw of the device, but a few other staples of the Blade line — the six-speaker array, the per-key RGB keyboard, the best build quality you’ll find in the high-end gaming space — as well as some features coming newly to the 18, including a CPU overclocking feature, a battery health optimizer, and an absolutely massive touchpad, all make for a solid package.
While the smaller Blade 16, with its dual-mode Mini LED screen, may be a flashy and fancy reimagining of what a Razer Blade can be, the Blade 18 is a more traditional offering — Razer took the Blades we knew and loved and just kind of blew them up. While some may aspire to the ideal of a fully-specced RTX 4090 Blade 16, I think this toned-down, 2560 x 1600, RTX 4080 Blade 18 is a more pragmatic buy for high-end shoppers. It’s a whole lot cheaper, but the experience delta is not that wide.
Before I get into my results, I do need to make one caveat: Blades are more expensive than they used to be. The Blade 18 I tested was the cheaper of two currently available Blade models, and it includes a 24-core Core i9-13950HX, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, 1TB of storage, and the RTX 4080. It currently costs $3,799.99; if you think that’s expensive, don’t even click on the RTX 4090 model, which is going for $4,499.99.
For context, the most expensive QHD RTX 3070 Ti model of last year’s Blade 17 is going for $3,399.99 — a full $400 cheaper. I know that eight is technically a bigger number than seven, but that is still a comparable model to our test unit when it comes to the tiers they occupy in Razer’s lineup. If you compare the top chips on offer, Razer sold a QHD 3080 Ti Blade 17 for $3,999.99 (though this was discontinued in the U.S.), which is $500 cheaper than the 4090 Blade 18. There is not currently a Blade 18 you can get for the price of last year’s QHD 3070 Ti models.
Basically, these gaming laptops are getting better — but they’re also getting more expensive (and they have been for the past few generations).
Diving into the gaming performance, which is presumably the reason you’re here: The Blade 18 did well. At QHD resolution, it ran every game at over 60fps — even Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing on, which is bonkers. Peruse the provided benchmark chart at your leisure. But what kind of a performance penalty do you see when moving from the 4090 down to the 4080? The answer, as far as I can tell, is… not a big one.
On many of the games we ran, the Blade 18 got a similar (and identical, in some cases) score to the Blade 16. (Our Blade 16 unit had this same Core i9 but an RTX 4090 inside.) In cases where the 4090 machine won, the deltas were generally in single-digit percentages. That often means frame rate increases of single digits — nothing that’s going to significantly impact most people’s gameplay.
The Blade 16 is a smaller machine than the Blade 18, so things like cooling and power limits might be coming into play there. For what it’s worth, though, MSI’s Titan GT77 HX, which has an RTX 4090 and is enormous, is also only single-digit percentages ahead of the Blade 18 on many of these titles. All in all, the RTX 4080 is looking like a solidly better value than the RTX 4090 based on these results.
Oh, the Blade 18 also put up a massive 43 percent increase in Horizon Zero Dawn performance over our Blade 17 review unit from last year (which had an RTX 3080 Ti). I’m just sharing that because I found it humorous. Anyway, games looked great on this QHD+ screen, which reached 574 nits of peak brightness in testing (considerably more than the average gaming laptop) — and is also, I have to remind you, 18 inches, which is so big.
This kind of machine is perpetually smudged.
In Premiere Pro, the Blade 18 finished our 4K export test in just over two minutes. It handily bested both the Blade 16 and the Titan on PugetBench, a synthetic benchmark that tests export and playback performance at 4K and 8K, scoring a 1413. In fact, it also beat the recent M2 MacBook Pros (and that’s supposed to be like, their whole thing). I’m scratching my head a bit at this result, I’ll admit. I even ran the test multiple times to make sure I hadn’t messed something up. My best guess would be, to borrow my earlier phrasing, cooling and power limits. Anyway, the takeaway: The Blade 18 is good at Premiere.
Speaking of cooling, a pleasant surprise throughout my testing was that compared to the Blade 16, the Blade 18 is… cooler. The 18’s larger chassis, after all, doesn’t just lend itself to more pixels; it also has room for a fancier cooling system. Razer claims that this device’s cooling system is “thinner and more efficient than traditional heat pipe methods,” utilizing a vacuum-sealed copper chamber with deionized water, as well as various special materials meant to reduce hotspots. So, seems like that’s all doing something.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call it cool — it certainly gets warmish during gameplay in the hinge area — but it’s not the worrisome fireball that I’ve found other thin gaming laptops (like the Blade 16) to be. The keyboard and palm rests largely stayed comfortable. The CPU did hit 100 (Celsius) a couple of times while I played, but it was not spending nearly as much time there as the Blade 16 did, and was largely hanging out in the mid-70s to mid-80s.
The Blade has a CNC Aluminum unibody with an anodized finish.
To be clear, that doesn’t mean this laptop is quiet. It’s loud. You will hear the fans going — probably from across the room if you run the device at full power as you game. If you find that too annoying, you can swap to Silent Mode in Razer’s Synapse software.
Charging port, Ethernet, USB-A, USB-C, headphone jack on the left.
Lock slot, HDMI, USB-A, USB-C, SD on the right.
Speaking of battery life: It’s not great. I got three hours and 46 minutes out of this device, using it solely for Chrome multitasking and some streaming (with the discrete GPU off). On the one hand, it is better than what we saw from the Blade 17 last year (which makes sense since, if nothing else, the battery is bigger). And battery life isn’t as crucial on giant gaming rigs as it is in the ultraportable market.
But 3:46 is still not great, and certainly mitigates the benefit of the Blade’s relatively thin and light stature somewhat. This device, while far from tiny, is compact compared to the Titans and Strixes of the world, at 0.86 inches thick and a hair over seven pounds. You’re not likely to find much thinner or lighter in the 18-inch gaming space, and I assume that portability will be at least some part of the appeal for people who are considering the product.
While the Blade 18 is technically a new device, it’s currently the closest thing we have to a sequel to last year’s Blade 17. One of the most noticeable changes is that the touchpad has increased by 50 percent in size from the Blade 17’s touchpad. The new touchpad is 15.74 x 10.84 x 0.86 inches — it’s huge. It’s actually almost too big for me, to the point where I have to consciously reach in order to left click with my right hand. I recognize that this is mostly a me problem. As with past Blades, this trackpad has a somewhat mushy click, but is certainly responsive to gestures and quick to scroll.
With an 88 percent screen-to-body ratio, the Blade makes efficient use of its screen real estate.
Port selection is as good as it gets: there’s a 2.5Gbps Ethernet port, in addition to the USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, Thunderbolt 4, three USB-A, HDMI 2.1, and UHS-II SD card reader. The Blade 18 can charge via USB-C (up to 100W) if you don’t feel like carrying its dedicated 330W adapter around — though it’s fairly compact as gaming laptop bricks go. And yes: I know lots of people have erased USB-A from their lives, but speaking as someone who still has old gaming peripherals that they have no desire to dispense with, those ports make my life easier.
The camera conveniently supports Windows Hello.
The 5MP webcam is another new feature, and it does look pretty good. It delivered a sharp, clear picture of me in a bright office setting where I look washed out on many laptop cameras. That said, it’s still a laptop webcam, and the picture remains somewhat grainy as pictures go. I’m honestly about as bummed about the lack of a physical shutter (the Blade 16 has one) as I am excited about the webcam’s quality.
Those are most of the new things, and the rest of this laptop is quite similar to big Blades past. This looks, for all intents and purposes, like a big Blade. The signature green logo is there on the lid. The black finish is smooth and a major fingerprint magnet.
It’s not THIN, but in the grand scheme of things, it is thin.
It’s a bit confusing to me that Razer isn’t currently selling a 4K model of the Blade 18. It’s selling a 4K Blade 16, after all, and a bigger screen gets even more benefit from those extra pixels. But the fact that this particular unit has a QHD screen makes a great case for it. Because while it’s possible that the RTX 4090 may be the right option for folks who want a 4K gaming experience, the RTX 4080 is absolutely the QHD buy.
I could summarize my impressions of the Blade 18’s various components here, but I’m not sure they’re super important to most people shopping in this category. The bottom line is that if you want an 18-inch gaming laptop and you don’t want it to be covered in obnoxious lights, the Blade 18 is probably one of your only options. It’s a decent option — and you shouldn’t spend more on it than you have to. As the prices of these laptops shoot through the roof, I’m doing a lot of thinking about just how much an additional frame is worth. I think shoppers should too.
Sennheiser IE 200 earbuds review: reconnecting with music — literally
We all get tired of Bluetooth sometimes, and the IE 200s are a nice reminder of what we’ve lost by trading the headphone jack for wireless convenience and platform-specific earbud features.
Every so often, I just need a break from Bluetooth headphones. I get fed up with recharging them. Heaven forbid I accidentally put my phone in my left pocket while out and about instead of my right and start noticing audio cutouts. (Yes, this can still happen with today’s best wireless earbuds and phones.) And I remind myself that I’m robbing my ears of the true potential of my cultivated lossless music library by settling for Bluetooth codecs instead of going wired. I’ve been feeling that wireless fatigue lately, and it just so happens that Sennheiser just released a new pair of wired earbuds, the IE 200, that seemed worth trying out.
These $149.95 earbuds promise balanced, detailed sound in a compact in-ear monitor (IEM) with adjustable ear hooks and a detachable braided cable. There’s no built-in mic — these are music-only buds — and Sennheiser lets you choose between more or less bass through a unique “dual-tunable” ear tip design. In one position, the IE 200s add some punch to the low end. But mount their ear tips in the outer position, and the lower frequencies become more neutral.
The IE 200s borrow much of their DNA from Sennheiser’s $700 IE 600 earbuds — ranked among the crème de la crème of IEMs — and aim to deliver some of that magic at a more accessible price point. The company sent me a pair of the IE 600s to test alongside its latest buds so I could compare and contrast. But my focus while using these has been to keep things casual; I didn’t run them through a DAC or do much intense analytical listening at home. I just wanted to make my music time feel more intentional and deliberate. Wired headphones will always do that more effectively than a set of AirPods Pro or even Sennheiser’s own Momentum True Wireless 3. “It’d be nice if it meant something again,” I posited aloud at the coffee shop — probably alarming the person sitting nearby who heard me say that out of the blue.
The way I consume music varies based on what phone I’m currently using. If it’s an iPhone, I’ll be carrying around thousands of music tracks encoded in Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) that I’ve amassed through the years. I always want to have my favorite albums within reach, no matter what my current Spotify or Apple Music subscription status is. And I’ve tried to preserve my personal collection in reasonable quality without going too overboard; if I ever need high-resolution lossless audio, I’ll turn to Amazon Music or something like Qobuz.
When I’m using an Android phone, where ALAC is somewhat out of place, I’ll mostly stick to Spotify, Amazon, and personal library stuff that I’ve uploaded to YouTube Music. (I really can’t recommend that service enough for storing your hard-to-find tracks in the cloud. It doesn’t do any of Apple Music’s mistake-prone track matching nonsense and uses only the files and track metadata that you feed it. If you’re a nerd like me who’s meticulous about that stuff, it’s great — and free.)
The IE 200s (left) have a sound signature inspired by Sennheiser’s IE 600 earbuds (right).
But the dilemma in either scenario was the same: I quickly crash-landed back in our modern reality where the headphone jack doesn’t exist on popular smartphones. So I swallowed my pride while testing the IE 200s and made sure to carry two dongles with me at all times: a 3.5mm-to-Lightning adapter for my iPhone 14 Pro Max and a USB-C equivalent for my Pixel 7.
The differences between the IE 200 and much pricier IE 600 begin right out of the box. The 600s come with a hardshell case, while the 200s fit into a soft carrying pouch. The nicer case has enough spare room for a backup / replacement cable, but that’d be a tight fit in the pouch. Both the IE 200 and IE 600 include six sets of tips: three sizes of silicone and three foam alternatives. I’m a foam person whenever given the choice, and the largest size did me fine throughout all of my testing.
The IE 200s have a plastic casing, while the $700 IE 600 use 3D-printed zirconium.
The two sets of earbuds share the same outer casing shape and are very similar in size, but they use different materials. The IE 600s are made from a really neat hand-finished 3D-printed zirconium shell that will probably look as good in five years as it does today. Sennheiser wasn’t about to match that level of craftsmanship with the mainstream IE 200s, so it opted instead for a stealthy all-black plastic shell. It might not age as gracefully, but it still looks sleek. In both cases, the earpieces were nicely compact and sat snug and flush in my ears. They’re both plenty secure — especially with those foam tips. Sennheiser has done an excellent job with ergonomics here: the IE 200s fit me naturally and comfortably in a way that not all earbuds do, and my glasses weren’t an issue for the adjustable ear hooks.
The IE 200 earbuds come with a soft carrying pouch.You’ve got to go higher in Sennheiser’s lineup for a more protective case with extra storage.
The braided cable bundled with the IE 200s was super lightweight and basically felt like nothing as I was wearing them. That’s a good thing, but the cord isn’t immune to microphonics and jostling noise when you’re on the move. Like Sennheiser’s other IEMs, these attach to the cable using MMCX connectors, but the recessed connector design on the earpiece could pose a problem for some aftermarket cables; make sure they’re specifically compatible with Sennheiser’s products.
Sennheiser describes the IE 200s as “exceptionally neutral,” but that’s not accurate. Turns out, a neutral presentation just isn’t very exciting to a lot of average consumers, and these definitely share a V-shaped sound signature that’s similar to the IE 600s. The bass boost on the less expensive earbuds is inoffensive and never veers into bloated territory. Everything is well controlled, which extends to their balanced mids and elevated treble frequencies. The IE 200s are articulate, detailed, and an enjoyable listen.
Image: Sennheiser
There’s more bass emphasis with the ear tips in the normal position.
But you’re not exactly getting the same experience as from the already renowned IE 600s. Despite these two sets of earbuds sharing a similar frequency response, you don’t need fancy audio gear to notice that the more expensive pair has a smoother, more dynamic tonality to them. The sub-bass hits a little fuller. Everything feels richer and less clinically sharp than on the IE 200s, and the soundstage is less condensed. The IE 600s have just that extra touch of warmth and authority to them. There’s a reason these buds are separated by hundreds of dollars, but I still believe the $150 IE 200s are a good option if you’re looking to spend a bit on wired earbuds. You won’t be as concerned with babying them, and they sound plenty good. I’m not here to debate whether “Chi-fi” IEMs are a smarter buy; I’m sure you can find all sorts of debates about that across headphone forums and on YouTube.
But I will say that Sennheiser’s “dual-tunable” ear tip concept seems very gimmicky. Most people will seat the ear tips flush with the casing, and that’s where the IE 200s perform their best and are more bass-forward. To cut back on that low end for the “analytical” listening mode, you need to pull the tips forward to a secondary position. The easiest way to do this is to fully remove them and put the tips back on very gently; they just sort of catch naturally at that initial outer position. Push more, and they’ll move to the bassier seating. The problem is that it’s very easy for the tips to move as you’re putting the IE 200s into your ears, so if you want the light bass tuning, you’ve got to be careful. In the end, it’s not worth it: these earbuds sound better with fuller bass, and this idea seems a little too clever for its own good.
These earbuds provide rich, detailed audio — even if they can’t match the terrific fidelity of the IE 600s.
It’s been nice getting reacquainted with wired earbuds while reviewing the IE 200s. I still bemoan dongle life, and it can be awkward when I occasionally forget that there’s no mic on these when answering a call. But neither of those things is enough to stop me from occasionally pushing aside Bluetooth earphones — even for all their conveniences — and plugging in. When I take the time, that’s still when I feel the most connected to the music I’ve loved for decades and where it sounds the best. I’ll still grab my preferred wireless earbuds on most days; that’s not going to change. But if you pick up Sennheiser’s newest earbuds, you might find yourself enjoying the same occasional reprieve from our wireless world.
Why Are You Seeing So Many Bad Digital Ads Now? Scrolling past ads has rarely been enjoyable. But in recent months, people say the experience seems so much worse.
‘Making the digital streets safe’: Calls for greater protection for women online
British peers propose amendment to online safety bill requiring social media sites to consider how to keep female users safe
Social media platforms would be required to follow regulatory guidelines protecting women and girls from online abuse under an amendment to the online safety bill tabled this week.
The proposed change would require Ofcom, the communications watchdog, to issue a code of practice on preventing violence against women and girls that social media platforms would have to follow when implementing their duties under the bill.
Fitbit might be working on blood pressure tech, but its future is murky
The Fitbit Sense 2 didn’t inspire much confidence in the future of Fitbit smartwatches. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge
Fitbit recently filed a patent application (pdf) for a force-sensitive display that would enable blood pressure readings on wearables. But even if patents did guarantee success — which they don’t — the past few months make it hard to be confident in the future of Fitbit smartwatches.
First things first, you shouldn’t read too hard into any patent filing. While it can give you a sense of what a company’s working on, it’s a legal tool for companies to effectively call dibs on a particular innovation. In the claims section of this filing (via Wareable), Fitbit outlines a force-sensitive screen combined with a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor that, when pressed, can estimate your blood pressure.
What’s neat about this concept is that it’s essentially riffing on the traditional blood pressure cuff. Those work by cutting off blood flow in an artery. That pressure is then slowly relieved, which helps doctors figure out when blood flow starts up again (systolic reading) and when your heart relaxes again (diastolic reading). High numbers can be a sign your heart is working too hard to pump blood through your body.
Image: WIPO IP Portal
Fitbit’s patent proposes a force-sensitive panel that, when pressed, could trigger a blood pressure reading.
It’s not particularly surprising that blood pressure would be on Fitbit’s radar. It’s far from the first wearable to include this feature. Samsung’s had it on its Galaxy Watches for quite some time, though it uses a different mechanism that requires periodic calibration to a traditional cuff and is unavailable in the US for regulatory reasons. There’s also the Omron Heart Guide — an FDA-cleared smartwatch where the strap doubles as an inflatable cuff.
However, there’s new momentum for cuffless, noninvasive blood pressure wearables that use PPG sensors. Valencell, which develops biometric sensor tech, showed up at CES 2023 with a cuffless and calibration-less fingertip blood pressure monitor. Last year, Movano Health — which also showed up at CES with a smart ring — announced it completed functional testing for a radio frequency-enabled chip that could potentially measure both blood pressure and blood glucose in wearables.
Fitbit’s patent is cool, but its last few months have been lackluster. Its latest smartwatches, the Sense 2 and Versa 4, took a back seat to Google’s Pixel Watch. Plus, features available on previous iterations of the watches — like third-party apps and Google Assistant — vanished. Google also rebranded the company as “Fitbit by Google” and recently announced that in a few years, Fitbit users will have to log in using their Google accounts. Just this week, Fitbit experienced severalserveroutages that left users frustrated and angry. Altogether, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture.
That’s why it’s hard to look at this kind of patent filing as an exciting development. If granted, it’s more likely to appear in a Pixel Watch than any Fitbit by Google product. And that’s if this feature even sees the light of day any time soon. While technology moves fast, health tech sure as hell doesn’t. Wearable tech companies usually veer toward “wellness” features because they don’t require regulatory oversight from the FDA. Blood pressure, however, would likely necessitate the FDA’s involvement.
At best, this filing is just further evidence that noninvasive blood pressure tech is something that wearable companies deeply care about. But when and in what form is impossible to predict. It’s also a reminder that while dreaming up life-changing health tech is easy, it’s much harder to make it a reality. By the time we see widespread wearable blood pressure tech, Fitbit might already be a distant memory.
Bing’s Revenge and Google’s A.I. Face-Plant OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, and Microsoft’s chief technology officer, Kevin Scott, on an A.I.-powered Bing.
Tesla’s Autopilot was not cause of fatal Texas crash, NTSB determines
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) has exonerated Tesla’s Autopilot system as the cause of a fatal and fiery Texas crash involving a Tesla Model S in 2021. Investigators for the NTSB issued their final report this week that determined the driver was operating the vehicle up until it impacted the tree and that they had been under the influence of alcohol and drugs (via Ars Technica).
Here’s the probable cause as written in the NTSB’s final conclusion:
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the Spring, Texas, electric vehicle crash was the driver’s excessive speed and failure to control his car, due to impairment from alcohol intoxication in combination with the effects of two sedating antihistamines, resulting in a roadway departure, tree impact, and postcrash fire.
The crash, which happened on April 17th, 2021 in Spring, Texas, made headlines due to investigators at the scene determining that the driver’s seat was unoccupied. The two men who died in the fiery crash were unbuckled; one of them was in the front passenger seat and the other in the backseat. The scene set suspicions that Tesla’s Autopilot advanced driver assistant software might have been in use, somehow without a driver present.
On an earnings call later that month, Tesla’s VP of vehicle engineering Lars Moravy said company representatives who inspected the crash determined the steering wheel was “deformed.” The steering wheel’s condition pointed to there being an occupant in the driver’s seat when the Model S impacted the tree, a finding that contradicted local authorities’ accounts.
Image: NTSB
The aftermath of the Model S involved in the fiery Texas crash.
Now NTSB investigators are certain there was an occupant in the driver’s seat up until the crash, and that Autopilot was not in use. Their findings included security footage showing the two men entering the 2019 Tesla Model S P100D and sitting in the front seats of the vehicle before leaving. Additionally, data retrieved by Tesla showed that the seatbelts were buckled up until the crash and that the driver moved to the rear seat afterward.
The Model S had more information stored in its event data recorder, which was used in the NTSB report. Five seconds before impacting the tree, the Model S had accelerated from 39 to 67mph in two seconds and traveled 57mph before a full-stop. It also determined that seatbelts had their pretensions activated, and the airbags were deployed. As for the fire, it started due to damage of the front of the battery module.
NTSB’s conclusion states that the driver’s speed and impairment from alcohol plus two sedating antihistamines resulted in a roadway departure, tree impact, and post-crash fire. As for Autopilot, NTSB determined it wasn’t in use because the system, in testing, is programmed to not go faster than 30mph on the street the Tesla last traveled.
While there are ways to trick Autopilot into activating without someone in the drivers seat, it seems that wasn’t the case in this crash. Additionally, the owner of the Tesla did not have the more advanced Full Self Driving package installed.
Blueprints for a dream: the new age of virtual architecture
Aspiring architects are using social media, AI and digital technology to showcase their fantastical creations to the full
“Something big is happening,” says Hamza Shaikh. “Architecture is entering a new age.” The ways in which buildings are imagined and communicated are, he argues, being transformed by a combination of social media and the ever-evolving techniques of digital drawing, to which artificial intelligence is adding new capabilities. And indeed, if it is not yet clear how blocks of flats or schools or shopping centres near you might be changed by this revolution, the energy and invention behind it are undeniable.
There is also, as Shaikh justifiably claims, a social transformation. If, in the past, aspiring architects had to claw their way up a profession that favoured those with connections and money, now anyone from anywhere can make a name for themselves, if they have the talent, determination and access to technology. They do this not by realising completed buildings, but through compelling images of imaginary architecture. They don’t all use the most advanced techniques all the time – some work by hand, some (Shaikh included) with hybrids of manual and digital – but all use the internet to spread their work and exchange ideas.
Google is working on making Chrome’s picture-in-picture more useful
The Verge
The latest Chrome beta, version 111, includes a trial for a feature that could make the browser’s picture-in-picture feature significantly more useful. Instead of being only for playing videos, Google’s looking into letting it display basically any web content in a floating window that stays on top of all your other windows.
There are quite a few ways this feature, which is called Document Picture-in-Picture, could be useful. Some of Google’s examples are mostly just spins on how picture-in-picture already works, such as video players but with custom UI (such as buttons to like or dislike a video, a timeline, or captions), or a miniplayer for video conferences that let you see a grid of people and access controls to mute yourself or raise a hand.
But it’s easy to imagine entire applets that take advantage of the API too; there’s a pomodoro website that’s already using it with supported browsers, and I’d absolutely use a website that gave me a picture-in-picture notepad or task list. Google also suggests the feature could be used to show, say, a playlist for your music.
Now I have a timer that can float above all my other windows.
Of course, if many sites start using full-document picture-in-picture, it’d be nice for the feature to come to browsers with non-Chromium engines. However, it’s currently unclear whether that will happen. One of the feature’s developers asked teams associated with Firefox and Safari for their position on it, and didn’t get back a definitive answer. However, people on the Mozilla team did raise some concerns about the feature being used as a venue for annoying pop-ups, and Apple folks weren’t sure if it’d even be possible on iOS.
According to the Chrome Platform Status tracker, the feature will be trialed until Chrome 115, which will likely release sometime in June. After that, developers will probably consider any feedback they receive on the feature, and decide how to move forward.
If you want to turn on support for the feature, you can enable its flag by pasting chrome://flags/#document-picture-in-picture-api into your URL bar, and choosing enabled from the drop-down menu. At this point there probably won’t be a ton of sites that support it, but you may come across some.
The best deals on MacBooks right now
The 2020 MacBook Air, one of the best laptops you can get, is frequently on sale. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
With multiple configurations and various models to choose from, finding a deal on a Mac equipped with an M-series chip is not all that difficult. It’s sometimes a slightly different story for the MacBook Pros with beefier M1 Pro and M1 Max CPUs, but with a little luck, you can score those excellent laptops for as much as $400 off. As for the most recent batch of M2-powered 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, they, too, get their fair share of modest savings with some regularity. And with the recent introduction of M2 Pro and M2 Max 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, it’s probably just a matter of time until you can save some money on those refreshed models, too.
Here, we’ll run through the discounts that are currently available for Apple’s latest laptops, all of which run Apple’s own silicon. If you come across any deals on older, Intel-based configurations still lying around, we strongly recommend avoiding them. While the last bastions of Intel Macs are compatible with macOS Ventura, they’re getting pretty old and not really worthwhile, even at a steep discount. Rest assured: there’s really no downside to opting for a Mac with Apple’s own chips, save for the sickos out there that swear they still need Windows Boot Camp.
Alternatively, purchasing refurbished is another way to save money on an Apple computer. Apple’s refurbished store provides a one-year warranty on all products and generally offers discounts of up to 15 to 20 percent off the price of a new unit. If you’re looking for a new model, however, here are the best MacBook Air and MacBook Pro deals available.
The best MacBook Air deals
The MacBook Air is Apple’s entry-level laptop. It’s best suited for typical productivity work, with a comfortable keyboard, excellent trackpad, and all-day battery life. The redesigned M2 version of the MacBook Air is out, but even with the arrival of that pricier model, the 2020 version with an M1 processor and fanless design remains in the lineup as the budget option. For most people, the M1 Air ticks all the right boxes when it comes to performance and price, which is why it’s the one we recommend for budget-minded MacBook seekers in our guide to the best laptops, even with the M2 model now available.
The base MacBook Air with the M1 chip comes with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. It typically sells for $999, but B&H Photo and Adorama currently have it for $899 ($100 off). That’s not quite as good as it gets on the M1 Air, but it’s a good price on a laptop that still represents an excellent value more than two years after its release.
As for the newer, fancier M2 MacBook Air, it’s currently on sale with 256GB of storage and an 8-core GPU for $100 off at B&H Photo. That drops the price of the base, MagSafe-equipped laptop to $1,099. It’s a solid deal, but we’ve seen it drop as low as $999. If you’re looking for a better value, B&H Photo is also selling an upgraded configuration with a 512GB SSD and 10-core GPU for $1,349 ($150 off).
The new MacBook Air is a super slim and light laptop with a 1080p webcam that’s actually usable, as well as a handy magnetic charger that frees up one of its precious two USB-C ports. Its M2 processor didn’t kick-start a revolution like the M1 generation, but it's a great performer for any user outside of more demanding creatives.
It does have some slight downsides, like slower storage in the base configuration and a notch cutout in its otherwise excellent screen. But even so, there hasn’t been a more travel-friendly laptop offered by Apple since the days of the polarizing 12-inch MacBook, and this one’s good enough to be the No. 1 laptop we now recommend in our buying guide.
The best MacBook Pro deals
The MacBook Pro line has been split into two different segments — for the time being. The M1-powered MacBook Pro of 2020 and its 2022 replacement with the M2 processor remain the Touch Bar holdouts. These are siblings to the 2020 MacBook Air, with similar designs save mostly for a fan that allows them to run at peak performance for longer.
At this point, it’s best to avoid the older 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro and opt for the newer M2 version with its exceptional battery life. Yes, it’s still plagued by the Touch Bar, and its base model has its shortcomings when it comes to speed, but we’re occasionally seeing discounts on the newer laptop.
Right now, the best deal on the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro is B&H Photo's $150 discount on the 256GB model with 8GB of RAM. That drops the price from $1,299 to $1,149. That said, for an additional $150, you can get the 512GB model that’s currently discounted to $1,299 ($200 off). Neither is a bad deal, but you folks who do intensive creative work may still be better served spending more on the more capable 14-inch MacBook Pro if you can stretch your budget (see below).
As for the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, we’re in a transitional moment. The M1 Pro / M1 Max models from late 2021 are being replaced by the M2 Pro and M2 Max models, which are mostly a spec-bumped refresh with the 16-inch M2 Max MacBook Pro also showcasing some excellent battery life gains thanks to the efficiency of the new chips. As good as the new generation is, however, we’re probably going to have to wait a little while before we start seeing discounts on the new models. For now, the 2021 MacBook Pros are fine machines, though you may consider opting for a 2023 model if you can’t find a deal good enough deal on a last-gen configuration.
As for the 16-inch MacBook Pro, it’s on sale at Amazon or B&H Photo with 512GB of storage and an M1 Pro for $2,099, which is an excellent $400 off. A close-but-not-quite-as-good $300 discount is running on the 1TB variant at Amazon, dropping the price to $2,399. That discount on the 16-inch base model is as good as it gets for such a workhorse laptop. If you cherish a beastly MacBook for performance, appreciate a big screen, and are in the market to make a purchase now, this deal is for you.
Our reviews of Apple’s M1 Pro and Max MacBook Pro lineup were absolutely beaming with praise. Whether it was the beautiful display or the remarkable performance and battery life they exhibited, these premium laptops are investments that we still recommend — at least, until the newer M2 generation starts seeing discounts. It’s great to see the return of more ports and an SD card reader, as well as MagSafe charging, to some Mac laptops we can once again say are well poised for actual pros. Just mind the notch — or better yet, make it more useful with software.
Google wants to help developers make experiences like Maps’ new ‘immersive’ view
Image: Google
Google wants to make it easier for others to make powerful mixed reality experiences with the official release of a new Google Cloud tool, Immersive Stream for XR. The tool lets you scan a QR code or click a link to access a mixed reality experience, and behind the scenes, Google Cloud GPUs will host, render, and stream those experiences to your device, according to a blog post.
Google says it’s already using the technology for its new immersive view in Google Maps, which lets you look at a 3D model of certain cities overlaid with details like traffic and nearby restaurants. But the company is also highlighting other ways to use Immersive Stream for XR, like for placing virtual furniture in augmented reality (not exactly a new idea) or seeing virtual cars while shopping (also not the newest idea).
Immersive Stream for XR was first announced at Google I/O in 2022, but alongside its wide availability on Thursday, Google also revealed that it now supports content made in Unreal Engine 5. Unreal Engine is growing steadily more popular among game developers, but it’s used for many non-gameapplications as well, and the addition of support for UE5 could be a boon for developers looking to take advantage of Immersive Stream for XR.
Google’s broader ambitions for mixed reality are somewhat up in the air now that we know Google Labs VP Clay Bavor will be leaving the company in March. Google won’t be replacing Bavor; instead, his remit will be split up under other executives at the company.
Kraken pays a $30 million fine and shuts down crypto staking in the US
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Kraken will end its crypto staking program in the US and pay $30 million in penalties as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The regulator charged the company with selling unregistered securities through its “crypto asset staking-as-a-service program.” It’s been clear for a while now that the SEC was planning to clamp down on crypto yield programs. In 2021, it got into a spat with Coinbase over the exchange’s plans to launch a lending feature in the US, and last year, it (and several states) settled with BlockFi for $100 million over the company’s interest accounts.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted concern about “rumors” the SEC would like to get rid of crypto staking in the US, claiming it’s “important innovation” and “not a security” — important since labeling it that way makes these businesses and, potentially, proof-of-stake blockchain operations like Ethereum 2.0 — subject to much stricter laws.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler appears to disagree, which could be bad news for others offering staking to customers in the US. This agreement should “make clear to the marketplace that staking-as-a-service providers must register and provide full, fair, and truthful disclosure and investor protection,” Gensler said in a press release.
When news of the settlement broke via a report on CoinDesk at 2:30PM ET, the price of Ethereum dropped sharply, falling over 4 percent in 30 minutes.
According to the SEC, Kraken took investors’ crypto and put it into a staking pool with the hopes of earning rewards. (Those rewards are meted out for being part of the validation process used by some blockchains.) In return for having their crypto locked up, Kraken’s customers would, in theory, earn interest on that crypto. But the regulator says that the returns Kraken promised were “untethered to any economic realities” and that the exchange provided “zero insight into, among other things, its financial condition and whether it even had the means of paying the marketed returns in the first place.”
The SEC also takes issue with the lack of consumer protections available for Kraken’s staking service, saying that the exchange “retained the right to pay them no returns at all.”
In a statement posted on its blog, Kraken says it’ll continue offering its staking services outside the US. It also says that its clients in the US will automatically have their non-Ethereum crypto unstaked, and their Ethereum stakes will be removed as soon as possible.
The regulator says that this settlement should “make clear to the marketplace that staking-as-a-service providers must register and provide full, fair, and truthful disclosure and investor protection.” The action comes after a year of seeing major crypto firms — including ones involved in interest programs — going bankrupt.
TikTok: how the west has turned on gen Z’s favourite app
US and European fears about China exploiting TikTok’s data harvest and promoting Beijing’s worldview look set to inspire an urgent overhaul in data privacy laws
The FBI has called it a national security threat. The US government has passed a law forcing officials to delete it from their phones. Texas senator Ted Cruz has denounced it as “a Trojan horse the Chinese Communist party can use to influence what Americans see, hear, and ultimately think”. And in March its CEO will defend its existence before the US Congress. For those unaware of the debate broiling on the other side of the Atlantic, the target of this strong rhetoric might prove surprising: an app best known for viral dances, launching generation Z media stars, and sucking teens down an hours-long content abyss.
But the rancorous debate over TikTok that began under the Trump administration has rolled on under President Biden. In addition to a ban of the app on all federal government devices, at least 27 states have blocked TikTok on devices they’ve issued, affecting a number of state schools and universities, too. A bipartisan bill, introduced in Congress last December, stipulates banning the app’s use by everyone in the United States.
Five Takeaways From the House G.O.P. Hearing With Former Twitter Executives The Oversight Committee called the session to scrutinize whether the social media platform has censored the right, but it yielded new revelations about the company’s permissive approach.
Twitter Glitches Pile Up as Key Features Fail Many users said they could not post tweets or message one another on Wednesday as the #TwitterDown hashtag began trending.
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